the comment that lit up twitter more than anything else was a comment by mitt romney how he would cut spending to pbs. the debate was hosted by pbs' jim lehrer. >> i'm sorry, jim. i'm going to stop the subsidy to pbs. i'm going to stop other things. i like pbs, big bird and i like you, too, but i'm not going to keep spending things and borrow money from china to pay for it. >> reporter: after the comment was made, there were 17,000 tweets per minute for the words "big bird ,," 10,000 for pbs. this debate really dominated twitter more so than either of the conventions. it was really pretty incredible. i'll have more on that and more from what the candidates had to say about medicare, taxes coming up at 5:30. back to you. >> really interesting. fall pledge drives have started at your local public tv and radio. >> big bird will have to take a pay cut. >>> we had a couple of former local politicians watch the debate in our studio last night. former congressman tom periello of virginia conceded mitt romney won the night but he may have to pay the price for his strong performance. >> his po